


Here at the End

by crazyjane



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Heavy Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 23:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5183372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazyjane/pseuds/crazyjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean made a bargain with Hell to get Sam back from death. It's almost time for him to make that payment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here at the End

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set before the end of Season 3 - probably best described as an alternative ending to the last few weeks before 'No Rest for the Wicked'. (I never liked hellhounds much, anyway.)
> 
> And yes, it has bucketloads of angst.

They didn't keep a calendar. Didn't need to. Both of them could feel the time draining away. Neither wanted to be reminded.

Sam kept hoping, kept hunting, looking for a way out. He learned basic Italian, German, Arabic, and called every hunter in the world. He dragged them all over the country consulting priests and academics, Dean kicking back in the Impala while he argued and pleaded and begged for just one scrap of hope. He broke into private libraries and pored over faded, ancient grimoires by torchlight for hours until the pages blurred and his headed pounded. He raged at the demons he trapped into magic circles while they smirked and made tick-tock noises. Somewhere in Missouri, he found a church where miraculous healings had taken place, and spent the night on his knees, rising at dawn to scream at the impassive face of Christ and shatter every window by throwing hymnals through them. Always, always coming back to Dean with another line of defeat etched into his face. 

In the end, as he'd always known he would, he went too far. 

Dean found Sam in a graveyard, drenched to the elbows in lamb's blood, his hand raised to draw the last stroke of a glyph that would bind his soul into eternal servitude. Not even stopping to think, Dean barrelled into him. The offerings on the makeshift altar were scattered and broken, the sigil irreparably smeared. When Sam turned on him, Dean's fist smacked into his jaw, and he just kept on hitting until Sam was on the ground, half-conscious. He grabbed him by the collar and screamed into his face, "You don't get to do that, do you hear me? You don't set that loose on the world!" Sam struggled to focus. "You gotta stop, Sam. You can't do this, you can't help me." And Sam's face, swollen and bleeding, twisted as the sobs tore out of him, and Dean pulled him close, murmuring nonsense, rocking him.

 

For his part, Dean found a certain morbid comfort in imagining just how it would happen. While Sam hit the books, Dean crashed out in the Impala with a beer and the music cranked up loud, letting the speculation run wild. Would he get to go out in a blaze of glory, holy water in one hand and gun in the other? Would it be something stupid and pointless like a car accident or a faulty electric wire? Maybe a demon would turn up specially to collect him (nothing like being a celebrity), and rip his head off right in front of Sam.

Or would he simply _stop_?

However it was going to happen, he decided he didn't want Sam to see it. When he knew the hour was getting close, he'd walk away. Better that way. Better for Sam. He wasn't going to think about how much it would hurt him to do it. He'd had his selfish moment, but he was still the big brother. Still the protector, the one who got between Sam and the Bad Thing. 

Even if this time, the Bad Thing was his fault.

Dean didn't let himself dwell on what was going to happen afterwards. In a way, he didn't even care. Oh, he was sure that when he finally got to Hell he was going to start caring a great deal, but that was after. That was when he'd finally be alone.

In the last weeks, they turned inwards, to each other. No more hunting, no more research. Dean found he had no desire to hang out in his usual bars, flirting and maybe picking up. He needed to be near Sam, and Sam wasn't going to let him out of his sight. They watched cable movies in motel rooms, changed the oil and the brakes on the Impala, walked the streets for hours talking about time long gone, friends loved and left behind, good times and disasters. Sam threw away his Blackberry one day, just pulled it off his belt and tossed it into a dumpster.

Without warning, with six days to go, Sam climbed into Dean's bed and wound his arms about his brother. After a moment's startled silence, Dean felt himself relaxing into it. His eyes slipped closed, drifting into sleep. Shifting a little, he drew Sam's arms tighter around him, and he let the warmth carry him down.

Sam lay awake for hours, watching every rise and fall of Dean's chest.

After that, Sam always seemed to have an excuse to touch him. He'd sling an arm over Dean's shoulders while they were walking, or take it upon himself to wipe off the smears of engine grease from his face. Never anything more than that, but they never slept alone again. At first discomforted by all the contact, Dean grew to expect, even crave it. With three nights to go, he turned over to face Sam and pulled him into an embrace, pressing his face against Sam's bare skin. They lay barely sleeping, without speaking, lost, but lost together.

Two nights left, and they stopped sleeping altogether. They'd run out of words, so they simply drove up to the hills overlooking the town where they had finally stopped moving. Neither could remember the town's name, and neither cared. They sat on the hood looking down at the streetlights, Sam's arm around Dean's shoulders. There were a million things Sam wanted, needed to say, but he couldn't speak. 

On the last night, Dean casually got up and shrugged on his leather jacket. Reaching for the car keys, his hand encountered Sam's instead, snatching them up.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Dean turned without answering and headed for the door, but Sam was there first.

"What the hell is going on, Dean?"

Dean wouldn't meet Sam's eyes. "Get out of my way, Sam. I know what I'm doing. It's best." 

He tried to move Sam away from the door. Sam grabbed him, hung on.

"What did you think you were going to do?" yelled Sam. "Just walk out and leave? One last big noble gesture? You think you're _protecting_ me?" His fists twisted in Dean's jacket. 

Dean, softly, "Let me go, Sammy."

"Remember what you said to me? You don't get to do that! And I don't care how much it hurts you - I - Dean - don't - " He choked, swallowed down the ache in his throat. His chest hitched and his mouth worked silently. Dean, held fast, finally looked up into his brother's face.

Sam, quiet, broken, "Don't leave me before you have to". His eyes, darkened with grief, and all they could never say to each other, all the need and the love that was at the heart of everything they had done, everything they had ever been, passed between them, always unspoken, finally realised. 

Dean's resolve was gone. He pulled Sam into an embrace, and they held each other so tightly it hurt. Dean's eyes closed. Wanting skin contact, he pulled Sam's shirt out of his waistband and flattened his hands against his brother's back. Let me have this, just this. They stood, breathing in the smell of each other, Sam's open mouth pressed against Dean's neck, Dean's face pressed against Sam's chest.

Here, at the end, there are no memories, no words of regret, nothing spoken ... just skin and breath and heartbeat ... one moment that they both desperately need to go on forever.

When Sam feels Dean stop breathing his eyes snap open, wild, unseeing, terrified. He doesn't look down at his brother.

Dean's hands fall away from Sam's back and his knees buckle. His weight carries them both to the floor but Sam doesn't let go. 

The tears don't fall, and he doesn't let go when Dean's body slumps sideways. He stares over Dean's shoulder, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

When they come to find him, he holds on even harder.

He won't look down ... and he'll never let go.


End file.
